There is one virtuous circle that's so easy to understand, and so essential to economic success, that I sometimes wonder why I need to discuss it. And yet I do, daily, within the business community and in government, local and national.

It goes like this: Every social good we enjoy - health care, education, decent housing, for example - is wholly dependent on our society being able to foot the bills. That means the more successful our economy, the better resourced we are to deliver civilised living.

There is no effective economy without a vibrant private sector. That requires investment and therefore in a civilised country we would do well to encourage and welcome investors.

The first place you would want to do that is in developing and maintaining the built environment.

Without adequate workspaces we have no businesses, no educational system, no health service. Without adequate housing, we have no staff. Invest in both and you can grow your economy and so the virtuous circle goes on.

The reason I keep having this conversation is that we, in Scotland, and especially in our capital city, are far from having the 'welcome' sign over the gateway through which property developers pass.

Our planning system is too slow and has inadequate resources to deal with the burdens placed upon it. Our development culture is one of 'why should we?' rather than 'how can we?'. This is not a blame game. The problems are recognised by national and local politicians, by businesses large and small.

There is one option we do not have - not to change. No development, no renewal is simply a ticket to decay. In a competitive world where capital is truly global there are a thousand cities in Europe alone who would welcome the cash currently lined up to deliver amajor refit of the waterfront and Leith docks, a stunning new St James Centre, the thousands of hotel beds of which our city is short.

If we want to eliminate the 'bad teeth' in the rows of South Clark Street or Gorgie or Leith then we must make our city inviting to developers.

Our cities are the hubs of wider regional economies creating opportunities for a wide range of economic, cultural and recreational activities.

This is not one way traffic. Developers are willing to help. They are offering to create scholarships to train new planners. Work from over-burdened planning departments could be alleviated by sub-contracting to the private sector. Pay-back is written in when the planned housing development at Leith docks would add at least £60million to Edinburgh's rate income. Shouldn't that instantly make it a national scale major priority?

Historic Scotland is showing that conservation does not sit in a vacuum. It's about economic health as well as preserving old buildings, impossible without private sector involvement.

Heritage organisations have a valuable role to play, but remember Lord Cockburn (from whom the Cockburn Society took its name) was pretty sniffy about the development of the New Town. Heritage has to accommodate and live alongside the new.

When the Scottish government said "Let's build 40 per cent more houses", heads nodded across the land. But seconds later the same heads were asking: "How?"

With the 2012 Olympics sucking skilled labour into London's ongoing megaboom, and Glasgow's Commonwealth Games about to do the same in Scotland, who exactly is going to build these houses? No one, unless we have willing funders. And at the end of the day - only the private sector.

What government can do is ensure we have the resources with adequate skills by targeting funding to appropriate college courses, by building increased capacity in all aspects of infrastructure, by freeing up planning systems.

Chambers of Commerce have been arguing for the Irish model - no decision in nine months is deemed a planning acceptance.

Edinburgh is conducting a 'skyline' survey. Well, if we never changed the skyline we wouldn't have St Mary's Cathedral in the first place. HBOS's magnificent HQ on the Mound would have been turned down.

I expect you are as passionate about Scotland as I am, in which case let's agree to modernise and progress.

Controlled change is not merely appropriate, it is vital in the process of growth which is not emblematic of the life of the city, it IS the life of the city. We are all NIMBYs when it's our own back yard, that's why the planning process has to be robust enough to introduce objectivity, ensuring that high-quality development is encouraged.

It's in all of our interests to get behind it.

'Without adequate workspaces we have no businesses, no education system, no health service. Invest and you can grow your economy'